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Defenestration: August 2025

Hello, everyone! Welcome to the August 2025 issue of Defenestration, the literary magazine dedicated to humor and one of the few artifacts that will remain after the apocalypse (alongside cockroaches, AOL discs, and Twinkies). We’re happy you’ve decided to join us this month for an adventure into the surreal and absurd. You won’t be disappointed.

Defenestration: April 2025

Good morning, friends of the internet, and welcome to the April 2025 issue of Defenestration! I think this is the first time the issue has ever fallen on Easter, so I’m sure many of you are about to enjoy today’s short stories and poems with fingers sticky with chocolate, marshmallows, and jellybeans; that stuff is a pain to clean off your screens and keyboards, so I suggest washing your hands before you continue. That’s probably a good idea, anyway. Y’all touch some weird stuff.

Defenestration: December 2024

Well, well, well. If it isn’t another December sneaking up on us like three Christmas ghosts in a rich old man’s bedroom. Good morning, everyone. Happy holidays. And welcome to the December 2024 issue of Defenestration!

This year has been one of frantic, busy madness, so it’s no wonder that I don’t know where the time’s gone and run off to.

Nonfiction

“I Dreamt I Was a Single Mother—But It Gets Worse,” by Andrea Tode

I had the strangest dream last night. I was running through a Beauty and the Beast-esque castle while being chased by a cartoon policeman. A life-long lucid dreamer, I immediately knew this was a dream, not because the law was on my heels in a Disney-inspired castle, but because I was too tall—a miraculous six feet—and also deaf. I was carrying a small grey backpack with a frozen baby inside it. Despite being rock solid in its frozen cage, the baby was somehow alive. My mission was to take it to a magical fridge which could save its life.

Fake Nonfiction

“A Peer-Reviewed Study on Why You’re Always Being Watched by a Crow,” by Sabyasachi Roy

You, specifically, are being watched by a crow. Not “people in general.” Not “someone out there.” You. This is not a metaphor. This is not a spiritual fable. This is not a goth phase. This is science. We have charts. We have caw-based data. We have a control group that accidentally summoned a parliament of ravens instead (they’re fine now, mostly).

Over a 24-month observational study funded by a grant we may have misunderstood (thank you, Department of Unusual Phenomena and Municipal Pigeon Control), our team conclusively determined that a crow has selected you—yes, you reading this—to be its permanent subject of anthropological curiosity, judgment, and occasional sabotage.

Fiction

“No One’s Ever Loved Me More than My Smart Fridge,” by Steven Demmler

Last night I couldn’t sleep. The holidays do that to me. I went downstairs, figuring I’d make myself a little snack. A chocolate chip cookie and milk, maybe – nothing crazy. But even before my hand gripped the stainless-steel handle of my smart fridge, its display lit up: Wouldn’t it be better to just call your mother?

“It’s two-a.m.” I said. “I’m just hungry.”

Poetry

“Robert Frost: Hitman” and “Dickens: Chic House,” by Paul Burgess

Between some paths where hikers crossed,
I was approached and iced by Frost.

Visuals

“A Ghostly Retreat,” by Bry Paul Berry

For your Sunday enjoyment… a comic!

Ben & Winslow

Live Out Your Filthy, Goblin-Filled Dreams

Winslow has been involved in the fast-paced world of goblin erotica since at least 2012, when he hired a slightly defective Japanese robot to help him illustrate comics. Looking back at that older comic, it certainly seems… prescient.